Thursday, November 21, 2013

POLL - 70% won't vote for those proposing Social Security cuts

As reported at the Huffington Post, the new survey looked at 10 key House and Senate districts and found that voters there strongly opposed any cuts to Social Security benefits (such as using
chained-CPI for annual cost-of-living-adjustments) -- a stance that may imperil [mostly Republican] lawmakers in next year's elections.

Proposed cuts to Social Security beneficiaries will also affect those who receive veterans' disability benefits, Veterans pensions and military retirement pay, by using chained-CPI (rather than CPI-E) to calculate annual cost-of-living adjustments (COLAS).

The new polling of key congressional budget negotiators from both red states and blue states shows growing momentum for expanding Social
Security:

More than 70 percent of those polled in each of nine districts and states said they
oppose cuts to Social Security benefits.

An average of 65 percent of those polled supported increasing, not
cutting, Social Security benefits.

Overall, almost 70 percent of Americans said they would be less likely to support a candidate who voted to reduce Social Security
benefits (which is part of the ongoing 40-year assault on
the shrinking middle-class)

A new round of polls seeks to measure public sentiment about Social Security as the latest round of budget negotiations continue into their 4th week.

Public Policy Polling has just completed surveys in 5 House districts and 5 states gauging public support for cutting or increasing Social Security benefits, public knowledge of various proposals before Congress, and public trust in each party’s policies regarding Social Security. In all but one of the districts and states polled, the sitting representative or senator is a member of the current bicameral budget committee, and in all but one of the targeted areas, the sitting politician faces a close re-election race in 2014. The surveys were commissioned and paid for by MoveOn.org Political Action.

Our results confirm that on Social Security, many congressional proposals and much media punditry have been far from aligned with the voting public. Though altering the cost-of living adjustment formula to decrease benefits in Social Security continues to be suggested as a potential outcome of ongoing budget negotiations, in all but one of our surveys, more than 2/3 of respondents oppose reducing benefits. The outlier was in Scott Peters’ CA-52, where 66% oppose benefit reductions, and, on average, 65% of respondents support increasing Social Security benefits.

As far as measuring knowledge of the political landscape, in 7 of 10 surveys, the majority of respondents did not know that both Republicans and President Obama had proposed reductions to Social Security benefits. And on average, 73.7% of respondents reported no prior knowledge of pending legislation in both chambers in that would increase benefits. These results indicate that if Democrats align themselves with expanding Social Security benefits in this round of negotiations, they can be seen at the forefront of an issue that has significant public support. They also indicate that voters will punish Democrats and Republicans who vote to cut benefits - with 69.6% on average saying they'd be less likely to vote for a member of Congress who votes to cut benefits.

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Bud Meyers writes about the economy, politics, Social Security, corporate outsourcing, labor statistics, the REAL unemployment rate, taxes and tax evasion, government and corporate corruption, and the plight of the long-term unemployed.